Level is a remote agency. Most days, our work happens in rectangles: calendars, docs, dashboards, threads. And we’re good at it. Remote is a core part of how we operate, and it’s a big reason we can move quickly, stay focused, and bring the right people into the work regardless of geography.
Still, there’s a different kind of lift that happens when you get everyone in the same place.
This week’s log comes from Las Vegas, where the whole Level team is together for our summit.
This summit exists for one reason: come together as one team, get aligned on where we’re going, and build the relationships and momentum that power how we work in 2026 and beyond. A chance to step out of the day-to-day, get clear on shared values and priorities, and leave energized to do our best work together.
We’re reconnecting with people we usually only see in Slack. We’re spending real time turning our values into behaviors you can actually recognize in the work. We’re hearing outside perspectives that sharpen how we communicate, how we perform, and how we lead. We’re getting clear on what “All In” means for 2026, and we’re recognizing the wins and the people behind them.
What I’m noticing is how quickly “good enough” gets challenged when the whole system is present.
Someone asks the second question. Someone pushes on the assumption. Someone points out the gap between what we meant and what we shipped. That’s the standard we talk about as Good enough isn’t, and being in person makes it easier to live up to it.
This has been one of those weeks that reminds me why getting together matters, and I can’t wait to share what comes out of it.
Patrick Patterson
CEO at Level Agency
Catch the replay
If you attended last week, thank you. We hope you found the session genuinely useful, and that the perspectives from Profound and Level gave you a few things you can act on right away.
My favorite moment was learning how ChatGPT often decides whether to visit a page in the first place. Before it reads the content, it looks at a few basics to understand what the page is about: the title/H1, the URL slug, and the meta description. If those aren’t clear and specific, the page can get skipped, even if the content is strong.
Definitely something to keep in mind as you refine your AI visibility strategy.
If you missed the session and still want the full rundown, the replay is here Watch the replay here
And if you want a quick baseline on where you stand today, grab the free AI Visibility Scorecard: AI Visibility Scorecard
What's interesting this week
AI Analytics Is Growing Up and Leaving Dashboards Behind AI is moving analytics from passive reporting into decision support. The real shift isn’t prettier charts, it’s systems that surface insights without being asked. For growth leaders, this means less time interpreting numbers and more time acting on them. The teams that win will be the ones that wire analytics directly into planning and execution, not monthly reviews. Read more
AI Disruption Is No Longer Industry-Specific This piece cuts through the “is my industry safe?” myth. AI doesn’t wipe out industries overnight, it rewires margins, speed, and expectations. If your value prop relies on friction, opacity, or manual effort, you’re exposed. Read more
Gemini’s ‘Personal Intelligence’ Points to the Next Era of Assistants Google is pushing Gemini toward persistent context and personal memory. That’s a strategy shift. Assistants that remember preferences, habits, and goals become harder to replace. For marketers, this raises the bar on relevance and trust. You’re competing for long-term usefulness. Read more
Semantic Search Is Now the Price of Admission Keywords still matter, but meaning matters more. Semantic search is how AI systems decide what your content is about and whether it’s worth citing. If your SEO strategy is still page-by-page instead of topic-by-topic, you’re optimizing for a world that’s moving on. Read more
Signal Quality Is Becoming a Real Ecommerce Advantage Ecommerce performance is increasingly defined by the quality of signals fed into AI systems. Bad data leads to wrong decisions at scale. This makes data hygiene a growth lever, not a backend chore. Teams that invest here can outperform without spending more on media. Read more
Google Is Getting Better at Understanding What Users Want Google’s new intent extraction methods reinforce a familiar theme. Search is less about matching words and more about satisfying outcomes. For growth leaders, content that answers real questions clearly will keep winning as surfaces change. Read more
Deep dive: AI
Don't "trust the process"
Simon Willison’s essay is a timely reminder that “process” doesn’t equal progress. In AI, it’s easy to confuse repeatability with reliability. A workflow can run smoothly while still producing junk, missed context, or decisions that don’t hold up.
What stood out to me is the emphasis on outcomes. AI systems can execute flawed assumptions at scale. If nobody is pressure-testing outputs against reality, the process becomes a liability. You see it in content pipelines that publish confidently wrong information, forecasting models that drift, and agents that follow instructions perfectly while missing the business goal.
For growth leaders, the takeaway is straightforward. Build feedback loops that test results in the real world. Instrument your AI workflows so failure shows up early. Make verification part of the system.
Agentic advertising needs rules before it needs scale
Agentic advertising sounds like the dream: systems planning, buying, optimizing, and iterating ads with minimal human input. Digiday’s reporting shows the industry is already arguing about standards, accountability, and control. That debate matters because the incentives get messy fast.
Without shared rules, these systems can optimize toward cheap wins: clicks that don’t convert, conversions that don’t stick, and creative choices that create brand risk. The opportunity is real, but it comes with real downside.
For growth leaders, the move is to get ahead of it. Define guardrails now. Decide what agents can optimize for, what they can’t touch, and where humans stay in the loop. The teams that win won’t be the ones who automate fastest. They’ll be the ones who automate with clear constraints and clean measurement.
Ideogram is an image generation tool that tends to do a solid job when you need visuals that include actual words like headlines, labels, or simple callouts. It’s not perfect, but it’s often more usable than many image generators when text matters.
Why I recommend it for growth leaders: it’s a quick way to explore creative directions for ads and social, generate rough concepts for landing page or email graphics, and iterate on variations without pulling a designer into every first draft.
If you want a practical creative platform for rapid testing and concepting, Ideogram is worth a look.
Ready to turn AI visibility into pipeline?
AI platforms are shaping how buyers discover and vet brands. But most marketers don’t know if their brand even shows up.
Level’s AI Visibility Scorecard shows how often your brand appears in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, how you’re described, and how that compares to your competitors.
You'll get:
A visibility score and share of voice vs top competitors
Sentiment analysis of how your brand is framed in AI answers
A tactical roadmap to improve your citations, content structure, and authority signals
Used by leading brands and fine-tuned across real buyer prompts, this scorecard is your opportunity to drive real visibility in the zero-click search environment.
